Understood, and I appreciate that.DB Cooper wrote: ↑13 April 2023, 04:22My concern is that there are too many variants. Now, when I want to introduce the game to new players, I have to make a lot of (potentially self-serving) decisions. I like the Bronte option. Austen courtship. Friendly. Polite Society. But new players typically prefer to play standard rules and are skeptical of things like variants that can be perceived as house rules to a game they don't yet know. So, do I stick with the base, do I try to explain all the variants, or do I just set it up the way I want and explain later. Then, I have to decide if I want to play to win or play in the spirit of the game. Some variance and customisation is great, but I would prefer to see a bit more standardisation and uniformity in the game experience.TheReeve wrote: ↑12 April 2023, 14:34Any solution must be a variant. There is no issue outside of BGA (five years of playtesting and feedback confirm this), and the scarcity mechanism is thematic and functional. Given that we are deploying a variant, I wanted a variant with the least rules overhead as possible. The solution is passive and accomplished by tweaking supply. No rule changes. Perhaps this doesn't work well enough, in which case other solutions are on the table.DB Cooper wrote: ↑12 April 2023, 03:40 I support both rules / fixes and would like to see them both become permanent. It puts players in a tough spot to have to choose between the spirit of the game and playing to win. Different people have different competitive streaks. Judging a player's motive for refreshing the market is tricky.
The case may be closed already, but to me the best approach is to not allow taking two of the same servants in one turn. Or you have to take 1 footman and 1 either lady's maid or valet to preserve their scarcity.
Dan
I play the game differently almost every time I play. Last week, I started each player with a Hall Boy, seeded the initial market with 5 SERVICE tiles (I like service), used a handful of Promos (both tiles and guests), excluded the Howard family, and hand-picked some Milestones. As I routinely exhort people on BGG and FB, Obsession I think is a sandbox, and that the core mechanics—the interaction between activity, servants, guests, and reputation—stand up to all sorts of variants quite well. I am working on a variant catalog, and there are so far over 20 variants that will go in there (if only I could find time to finish!).
True, confidence in the sandbox comes with a good familiarity with the game, but adding an extra LM and V to your starting service IRL would be an easy thing to do if it suits you. To announce to the thousands of game owners that this is a new rule? It hasn't been necessary and would create tremendous confusion.
I do appreciate your input, thanks.
Dan